Dušan Hanák (April 27, 1938 in

Bratislava Bratislava (, also ; ; german: Preßburg/Pressburg ; hu, Pozsony) is the Capital city, capital and largest city of Slovakia. Officially, the population of the city is about 475,000; however, it is estimated to be more than 660,000 — approxim ...

) is a Slovak film director. Hanák graduated from the FAMU (Film and TV School of the Academy of Performing Arts) in Prague in 1965. He began with a series of shorts at the Koliba film studios in

. Several of them received awards, and so did his first feature film ''322'' (the code for cancer in medical records of diseases, 1969).

Career

Hanák followed it with the still admired feature-length documentary ''Pictures of the Old World'' (''Obrazy starého sveta,'' 1972), partly a meditation on what lies hidden beneath the concept of "an authentic life", a theme already addressed in ''322''. Although Hanák was treated with suspicion by the more repressive communist authorities that took over after the Warsaw Pact

invasion of Czechoslovakia The Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia refers to the events of 20–21 August 1968, when the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic was jointly invaded by four Warsaw Pact countries: the Soviet Union, the Polish People's Republic, the People's Rep ...

, he found an early refuge in a topic sufficiently removed from big politics to survive on the margins of official production and yet, executed with a finesse that gave it a wide international appeal. In the most extraordinary section, an old man talks with great fascination and lucidity about space travel, recalling how two astronauts walked on the moon and collected rocks while a third circled in their spaceship. Tacked to the wall of his crumbling shack is a small photograph of men walking on the moon. It is a beautiful, elegiac work whose images could apply to

Appalachia Appalachia () is a cultural region in the Eastern United States that stretches from the Southern Tier of New York State to northern Alabama and Georgia. While the Appalachian Mountains stretch from Belle Isle in Newfoundland and Labrador, Ca ...

or any other poor region. Good reviews or not, ''Pictures of the Old World'' was ordered shelved after the briefest of theatrical runs. Nevertheless, despite the authorities' surly take on Hanák's films, his next venture, ''Rosy Dreams,'' turned out to be another original work. His film '' I Love, You Love'' won the Silver Bear for Best Director at the

39th Berlin International Film Festival The 39th annual Berlin International Film Festival was held from 10 to 21 February 1989. The Golden Bear was awarded to American film ''Rain Man'' directed by Barry Levinson. The retrospective was dedicated to German film producer Erich Pommer ...

Filmography

* ''

322 __NOTOC__ Year 322 ( CCCXXII) was a common year starting on Monday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. At the time, it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Probianus and Iulianus (or, less frequently, year 1075 ' ...

'' (1969) * ''

Pictures of the Old World ''Pictures of the Old World'' ( sk, Obrazy starého sveta) is a 1972 Slovak documentary film by Dušan Hanák. The film is about old people who seemingly live at the edge of society. Pictures of the Old World was voted in 2000 by Slovak critics as ...

'' (1972) * '' Rosy Dreams'' (1977) * '' Silent Joy'' (1985) * '' I Love, You Love'' (1989) * '' Private Lives'' (1990) * '' Paper Heads'' (1995)

References

External links

Slovak Movie Database
* * Dušan Hanák (director

, 1969. (Clip.) {{DEFAULTSORT:Hanak, Dusan 1938 births Living people Slovak film directors Silver Bear for Best Director recipients